Exlovers - The Waiting Room, London 19/06/12

Swedish Electro gods Miike Snow were graced with an on time arrival musically in 2007; after playing the Reading and Leeds Festivals to good crowd sizes in noticeable tents. Looking back at a mid-afternoon set some years back, I'm glad I ran like a disheveled idiot to the other side of the site to catch 'Animal', the closing track of their then set, which carried fresh and super exciting dulcet tones of puritanical thought.

Last night saw exlovers celebrate their long-awaited debut
album Moth with a launch party at The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington.
Masses of guilt-ridden audience members (including myself) tumbled into the
basement venue towards the very end of the main support’s set, as everyone had
been glued to the England game being screened above, but complete attention
focussed upon exlovers as they took to the stage.

The London five-piece create a pure, sweet and dreamy environment within
which they play quintessential pop songs that are beautifully decorated with
artistically tasteful aesthetics. Breezing through the set with well thought out
boy/girl vocals working in perfect cooperation and intelligent shoegazing
guitars, it was obvious to see that the crowd were falling helplessly in love with
exlovers.

Expectations were exceeded even further when they unveiled 'Unloveable'.
This slow-paced treasure is utterly absorbing, with gorgeously interlocking
pitch-bending guitars and exhibiting a stroke of dream-pop songwriting genius.
It was all going far too swimmingly.

Then something unfortunate happened. As they were preparing to close the
performance with one last number the drummer’s bass drum had faltered on
him, thus making the drums effectively useless. This was an archetypal car-crash
moment, where most would have had to call it a day at this point and end on an
absolute anti-climax, yet exlovers soldiered on regardless.

After a brief team-talk regarding how to recover from this technical upset, a
decision was made and vocalist Laurel addressed the audience "we’re not sure if
this is going to work, so we’re just as new to this as you." They played a slower,
stripped-down version of previously released single 'This Love Will Lead You On'
with the drummer contributing to the best of his resources with tambourine in
hand. The show must go on.

It was not long until everyone in the room realised that what developed as
an unwanted misfortune had transcended into a beautiful mistake. Witnessing
a song of this calibre played in it’s bare bones gives us an insight of how it was
originally written before it was brought to the full band. The crowd also played
their part in supporting exlovers’ persistence to continue by clapping and singing
along. This act had a visibly humbling effect on the band as they were all gleefully
smiling at each other on stage in the acknowledgment that they have made
something special; a genuinely moving sentiment that is incredibly rare to be
evoked during any live performance.

I know we're only half way through 2012, so ask me again on New Year Eve,
but I still think this will go down as gig of the year.